Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Communication is a form of data communication between entities that, when deployed, do not necessarily require direct human interaction. One challenge of M2M Communication is establishing a protocol so that that deployed equipment may be managed remotely without any direct human interaction.
Existing M2M methodologies lack over-the-air protection of preliminarily configuration identifiers; they have do not utilize information on the Trusted State (TS) of the M2M-enabled equipment in authentication, registration, and provisioning of the equipment; they do not ensure a secure change of subscribed operators for M2M-enabled equipment; they do not ensure that the Authentication and Key Agreement credentials used in preliminary authentication of the M2M-enabled equipment is trusted; they do not provide for secure updating of software and firmware, or for reconfiguration of M2M-enabled equipment; and they do not detect and react to tampering with M2M-enabled equipment. Furthermore, the role of the M2M-enabled equipment user/subscriber lacks definition. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for improving M2M performance, security and reliability.